The Brontë trail and beyond

Quite a few local press articles to report today. The Telegraph and Argus encourages readers to follow the 'Brontë trail', as do we:

Think Brontemania and you’re likely to think of a windswept parsonage standing against bleak moorland, overlooking the cobbled streets of Haworth. The Brontes’ former home has been a museum for more than 80 years, and attracts thousands of visitors from around the world.
Numbers have been boosted by the ITV adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic Wuthering Heights, shown last week. Costumes from the drama, including dresses worn by actress Charlotte Riley as Cathy and a long black coat worn by Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, are on display at the museum until the end of the year.
But the Bronte trail doesn’t just lead to Haworth. The literary family left a mark across the district, from Thornton, where the sisters’ birthplace stands in Market Street, to Apperley Bridge, where Charlotte taught, to the Spen Valley, which provided much of the inspiration for her novel, Shirley.
In the TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights, also starring Andrew Lincoln and Sarah Lancashire, both East Riddlesden Hall and Oakwell Hall had a starring role as the Earnshaw family’s moorland home.
Exterior shots of East Riddlesden’s imposing facade were featured, and filming at Oakwell Hall took place in the kitchen, with its huge stone fireplace, parlour, wood-panelled dining-room, used as Mr Earnshaw’s study, the painted chamber and a servant’s room upstairs. Artefacts from the TV drama currently on display at Oakwell Hall include a signed script, a portrait of Cathy, a headboard carved with the names Cathy and Heathcliff, and the deeds to Wuthering Heights which Heathcliff made a drunken Hindley sign.
There was already a Bronte connection to Oakwell Hall long before the Wuthering Heights film crew rolled up. Charlotte Bronte visited the house in the 19th century and it was the inspiration for Fieldhead in Shirley.
Built in 1583, the manor house is set out as it would have been in the 1690s, when it was home to the Batt family. A mix of original and reproduction furnishings provide an insight into late 17th century life. Outside, dotted around a pretty courtyard, is a visitor centre, shop, cafe and ‘Discover Oakwell’ gallery.
The house is set in 110 acres of country park, with delightful walks, nature trails, a period garden and a wildlife area.
Over at Gomersal, an 1830s former cloth merchant’s home, Red House, also has a Bronte link. The home of Charlotte’s friend Mary Taylor, it is featured as Briarmains in Shirley.
“There was no splendour, but taste was everywhere,” wrote Charlotte about the pretty red-brick house, which looks much as it did in her day. Each room brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its old range and jelly moulds, to the stained glass windows, described in the novel. Charlotte’s Spen connections and friendship with Mary are explored in an exhibition in the barn.
Wandering around the Parsonage Museum, with the sound of crows outside, there’s a fascinating flavour of the Brontes’ domestic and creative lives.
Items on display include Charlotte’s writing materials and their father Patrick’s magnifying glass.
Pre-booked guided tours allow visitors to see treasures from the Bronte Society’s world-famous collections not always on display, including miniature books, made from sugar paper stitched together, which the siblings created as children.
Outdoor activities include guided walks around Haworth, starting in the Parsonage garden, which remains pretty much as it was during the Brontes’ time. A Cyprus Pine tree has grown from saplings planted by Charlotte acquired on honeymoon in Ireland.
Peter Bowker, screenwriter of ITV’s Wuthering Heights, will be at West Lane Baptist Church, Haworth, on September 24 to talk about the process of adapting a classic novel for television.
Next Saturday, novellist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be at Haworth’s Old Schoolroom talking about her love of the Brontes.
Factfile The Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, is open from April to September, 10am-5.30pm and October to March, 11am-5pm. For more, ring (01535) 642323 or bronte.org Oakwell Hall, Nutter Lane, Birstall, is open weekdays, 11am-5pm, and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01924) 326240 or visit kirklees.gov.uk East Riddlesden Hall, Bradford Road, Riddlesden, is open Saturday to Wednesday, 11am-5pm. Ring (01535) 607075 or visit eastriddlesdenhall.co.uk Red House Museum, Oxford Road, Gomersal, is open Monday to Friday, 11am-5pm and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01274) 335100. (Emma Clayton)

Also The Telegraph and Argus reports that East Riddleden Hall will be open to the public as part of this year's Heritage Open Days:

East Riddlesden Hall, near Keighley, owned by the National Trust, was one of eight of the charity’s Yorkshire properties taking part in Heritage Open Days programme.
The 17th century manor house, which has a country garden, grass maze and duck pond, also has links to the Civil War and was the location for the 1992 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights. (Hannah Baker)

Don't forget that Holy Trinity Church at Little Ouseburn - the church Anne attended while working for the Robinson family - will also be open as part of the same initiative.

And also from The Telegraph and Argus comes an interesting letter from a reader:

SIR – Haworth is a lovely place, I go there often. There’s nothing better than strolling up Main Street to the Bronte Parsonage, and then back down to The Fleece, where on a nice afternoon one can sit outside with a pint of Timmy Taylors, chill out, and watch the world go by.
Just one thing spoils it. Why can’t Bradford Council replace the modern imitation gas lamp, opposite the pub, with a genuine ‘proper’ Victorian gas lamp (adapted to electric of course).
For a few hundred quid it would look much better and more in keeping with the street.
Just one more thing while talking of improvements; get rid of the wheel-clamping ‘Dick Turpin’ – he gives Haworth a bad name.
I Dickinson, Cooper Lane, Horton Bank Top

After all this (excepting the hateful clamper, of course), the following article from the Keighley News is hardly surprising, is it?

Keighley and Haworth are helping Yorkshire in its role as one of the most popular tourist destinations in the UK.
Bradford district comes out as a top spot in a visitor survey which reveals how the county is bucking tourism trends.
And the Brontë Parsonage Museum and Keighley and Worth Valley Railway are among the tourist hotspots.
The city and surrounding area was praised for its “good atmosphere”.
The majority of visitors — 84 per cent — planned to attend museums or other cultural attractions, according to the survey.
Almost 11,000 people visiting the county were quizzed about their opinions, between May 2008 and April this year.
The survey was funded by Yorkshire Forward and managed by Welcome to Yorkshire.
Its aim was to give a breakdown of visitor habits and the results revealed high scores for feeling welcome, customer service and atmosphere and value for money.
Bradford was said to be full of character and had lovely countryside and the Haworth area was good for walking and visiting.
Jim Shipley, of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, said the survey was in line with what the heritage line was experiencing.
“We have noticed that the number of visitors midweek is higher — last year we suffered a drop,” he said. “And there is a distinct increase in the number of foreign visitors. All this is very gratifying. Keeping visitors and ensuring they return involves giving them extra value when they get here — not just a trip on a steam locomotive.”
Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “This is the first time that such in-depth visitor information has been collated.
“Headline results show that 96 per cent of visitors would recommend to a friend and 88 per cent are likely to return, which is excellent.”

A town on the other side of the pond - in Texas - also has a Brontë connection, according to the San Angelo Standard Times:

Folklore has it that the town of Bronte was named after the author of “Wuthering Heights” when it was founded in the 1880s. . . (Laurel L. Scott)

Western Mail reviews The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini.

She left the Caribbean in 1907 for a convent school in England, already by this time a lover of the works of Dickens and the Brontes. [...]
But it was Wide Sargasso Sea, published in 1966 after she spent many years as a recluse in Devon, which is best remembered.
The book was written as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 classic Jane Eyre.
In the novel, set in the Caribbean, Rhys invents a dark and disturbing history for the unfortunate first bride of Edward Rochester, known as Bertha Mason.
Pizzichini said: “Written more than 40 years ago, Wide Sargasso Sea clearly mined Rhys’s memories of life in the lush backwaters and steamy heat of Dominica in her attempt to explain how Bronte’s dishevelled figure locked in the attic came to lose her mind.”
Bethan Jenkins, Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales West, has listed Wide Sargasso Sea as one of her favourite books. She described it as a “strong critique of colonialism with a vibrant feminist edge”. (Robin Turner)

The Monthly Review discusses 'a new edition of Jonah Raskin’s The Mythology of Imperialism: A Revolutionary Critique of British Literature and Society in the Modern Age', making a brief reference to Emily Brontë.

As a big fan of Victorian novels, even the stay-at-home kind, I’m tempted to object that some of what Raskin says about the Victorians (not all of which is negative—he does see important virtues in Dickens, Emily Bronte, and even George Eliot) is tendentiously arranged to make the contrasting case for the modernists who came afterward. Is there too much resolution in the endings of Victorian novels? Well, maybe, but it depends on how good you are at recognizing loose ends, so to speak, that carry the logic of the novel beyond its final distribution of reward and punishment. These novels invest a lot of energy in issues that they cannot finally resolve, and that they all but admit they cannot resolve. In this sense, they do what Raskin’s book also does: teach readers to recognize the contradictions in their lives by following out the contradictions lived by literary characters, even if no one can imagine any immediate or likely resolution to those contradictions. (Bruce Robbins)

And it looks like we're in for another ride in the 'Austen-meets-Brontë' review type, as shown by this article from The Telegraph on the BBC's forthcoming Emma adaptation.

Producers seem to believe that passion is good and appeals to modern audiences, while emotional restraint is a distortion of natural impulses therefore bad. Perhaps this is what is behind the new BBC adaptation. It sounds as if what they're going to create is a strange kind of hybrid: Austen crossed with the Brontes or Bridget Jones in a bonnet.
In some ways the aim to make Emma alive and readable is laudable but you have to work out how much you can change Austen for it to still be Austen. (Judith Hawley)

Crafty people on the blogs today: Love and Friendship has created several Jane Eyre 2006 icons and Carol's Crafty Creations has pictures of her Wuthering Heights quilt.

Categories: Books, Haworth, Movies-DVD-TV, Shirley, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights